Billions and billions for emergency funding just in the last hour

[Sig]

More billions, this time from China

Isnt it wildly interesting that we have diseases and cancers that kill daily and other viral implications and addictions that never see any kind of money to fight it and if they do its tiny amounts or amounts that have to be raised by donations but here we have a virus that's not even a few months old receiving hundreds of billions in handouts to fight it....its soooooooo odd that research around the world is spending each second right now to eliminate a virus that's been here for months and we have diseases and cancers that have been here for hundreds of years and no cures yet......
Really is fascinating to see this unfold and see how money is allocated to fight one disease and not another.




HEALTH AND SCIENCE
Coronavirus live updates: China allocates $16 billion for prevention efforts, South Korea reported 438 new cases
PUBLISHED WED, MAR 4 20207:13 PM ESTUPDATED 10 MIN AGO



https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/05/coronavirus-latest-updates-china-south-korea-cases.html

Not for nothing that "the cure for cancer" is used interchangably with "solving world hunger" or "world peace" as a euphemism for very hard, intractable problems. This, on the other hand is something we are reasonably sure we'll have a vacinne for in a years time and we have the choice have having many millions of people worldwide die in the interim or just a few thousand. It's a pretty bounded problem with pretty defined outcomes and in that kind of situation it makes perfect sense to spend money to achieve that outcome.

As an FYI, the NIH budget is about $40B every year, year after year. Researching and fighting disease is just hard and expensive. The slow pace of results reflects that as much as a lack of resources.

 

[Sig]

are they going to use the money for what?
unless they use the money to buy more food for supplies or build more hospitals and hire more health care workers or baby sitting et.
billions isn't not enough. and spending billions to buy stock or support the market..who will that slow down the spread of the pandemic or virus?
billions for more health workers yeah. but financial buy stock..what would that do?
this crash would not have been that bad if the market was allowed to trade freely.
but no the 'market' wanted to squeeze the short positions
well I tell you this it's the permanent short positions that is holding this two bit market together,
and nobody is stupid enough to sell insurance or sell puts. in this market.
if you see a train coming and your on the train track., get out of the way...immediately.

What in the world ever led you to believe they'd appropriate funds to buy stock to support the market? If you really want to know the specifics, the actual text of the law can be accessed at congress.gov. But some basic civics refreshers would probably also be pretty beneficial.

 

[padutrader]

market ready to take small dive now thurday, just to remind folks that it can and does go down today so that a rebound will be possible when NFP comes around tomorrow.....

 

[ET180]

I kind of wonder about this line of thinking. Let's apply it to something else. Right now about 17 million people die from heart disease around the world each year. Let's say a new thing pops up, let's call it disease X, that "is about as deadly as heart disease", meaning it kills an additional 17 million people. Should we be concerned about disease X and try to stop something that doubles what is already a really bad thing? Or because something equally bad already exists then we shouldn't be concerned about something of equal magnitude that adds to the existing death toll by that magnitude?
Obviously we'd be concerned, an additional 17 million people are going to die! Why is that statement on heart disease deaths being replicated by something else absurd, but the whole "It's no more deadly then the flu" comparison make sense? At what number of doubling of deaths do we say it's a problem, and at what level do we say "well X people die from (pick a disease) therefore why are we concerned about an additional X people dying?

Consider the total impact. The beer virus has been around for months. It's "only" killed (I feel sorry for the people affected, but trying to put things into perspective) around 3,300 people according to this data:

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

According to the same data, more than half the known cases have already fully recovered and as I have pointed out before, there are likely tens if not hundreds of thousands of more cases where people caught the virus and fully recovered on their own without medical help -- the undocumented recovery cases. There's also going to be some cases where people died of the CV that were also not documented, but I suspect that's a much, much smaller group as most people try to get medical help once they are on the brink of death...although in some poor countries, that's not an option. According to the CDC: "CDC estimates that influenza has resulted in between 9 million – 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 – 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 – 61,000 deaths annually since 2010." The CV is not going to be around forever. Drug companies will find a cure on their own as there is enough profit incentive to do so. The only difference is that CNN does not spend an hour talking about every single person who has died or even caught the flu. Where if one person gets the CV, it's national news because it also helps serve their intended purpose of causing panic (good for ratings) and hopefully weaken the economy to fulfill a desirable political outcome in November.

 

[ET180]

What in the world ever led you to believe they'd appropriate funds to buy stock to support the market? If you really want to know the specifics, the actual text of the law can be accessed at congress.gov. But some basic civics refreshers would probably also be pretty beneficial.

Laws can change. Japan has been buying ETFs for years.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/BOJ-is-top-10-shareholder-in-40-of-Japan-s-listed-companies

 

[ET180]

Do you call into work when you have the flu? Even if 80% of cases are non-crippling infrastructure could be brought to a grinding halt by a single worker coming to work sick. Who's going to man the power plants? The water stations? Who's going to fix you when coronavirus infects an entire hospital?

Moreover, what about the supply chain? America has gone from a producer-exporter to a consumer-importer nation in a few decades. Without cheap labor the supply chain falls apart and businesses suffer.

There are very real economic reasons spending huge dollars on this makes sense and it starts with preparing cities and infrastructure for what could be the worst "flu" season they've ever seen.

Same risks with flu. Show me the data where this is far more deadly and contagious than a flu. I suspect no one will be talking about this 3 months from now except as an excuse for lowered earnings.

 

[ET180]

Flu 0.1% mortality rate, this 2% so 20x's as bad.

How many people under 15 have been killed by the CV? The mortality rate is higher for this because there is no vaccine so it hits elderly people a lot harder than the flu. The mortality rate for the flu would be a lot higher too if there was no vaccine to keep the elderly people from getting sick. Again, not trying to downplay the tragedy of someone dying from any illness, but from what we know, it doesn't look like the end of the world is next week.

 

[bone]

There are really only a handful of worthwhile government functions that have a direct and meaningful impact on our civilization, our society, and our welfare.

Disaster response and disease prevention/mitigation are two of them.

 

[Turveyd]

How many people under 15 have been killed by the CV? The mortality rate is higher for this because there is no vaccine so it hits elderly people a lot harder than the flu. The mortality rate for the flu would be a lot higher too if there was no vaccine to keep the elderly people from getting sick. Again, not trying to downplay the tragedy of someone dying from any illness, but from what we know, it doesn't look like the end of the world is next week.

It's definitely a bit its only going to kill the old and sick, which is great unless your an old or sick person.

Younger people with no obvious issues are dying aswell not as many.

America 10% pay for treatment or tough it out then die trying, great country.

 

[bone]

America 10% pay for treatment or tough it out then die trying, great country.

In America, if you show up to any Hospital Emergency Room, you will get treatment regardless of your insurance status or ability to pay. In fact it is a Federal Law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. In fact, the Hospital can be sued for refusing to treat you.

In terms of ongoing medical care and any doctor visits, if you're 65 or over in the United States, or if you are under 65 and disabled, you are covered under the government sponsored program called Medicare. Medicare Part A provides free hospitalization coverage to individuals who are 65 years or older, regardless of income. Medicare Part B covers medically necessary services and equipment, including doctor’s office visits, lab work, x-rays, wheelchairs, walkers, and outpatient surgeries.

If you are under 65 in the United States and are poor or have limited income, your medical care is covered under the government sponsored program called Medicaid. It's been that way since 1965.